Trade goods

Spread across the map are trade goods: spots holding a resource that gives a town coins each hour and one or more buffs. They are scarce, and they are one of the main reasons to settle somewhere or to go to war.

Finding them

You recognise a trade good by a pillar of bedrock carrying signs that show its name. There are goods on land and goods on water. They lie 15 to 40 chunks apart.

Some goods only occur in one part of the map, see the Region column.

The pillar is only a marker. The good is tied to that spot: moving or removing the blocks changes nothing.

Bringing one in

1. Research Trade.
2. Make sure the pillar lies inside your town, and build on it:
   • a Trade Outpost on a good on land;
   • a Fishing Boat on a good on water. That needs a Shipyard first.
3. The goodie appears in the frame of the outpost: an item that stands for the good.
4. A mayor or assistant takes the goodie from the frame and puts it in one of the frames of the Town Hall or Capitol. Right-click the frame.

From then on the goodie gives the town coins each hour and its buffs.

You cannot demolish an outpost while its goodie is not in its own frame.

What they yield

The coins column shows the base value per hour. What the town really gets depends on:

• the government: Theocracy doubles it, Tribalism takes a fifth off;
• a Market in the town: +10%;
• the happiness of the town;
• the same good several times: when the town uses two goodies of the same kind, each is worth half as much again. Three make it double, four or more two and a half times.

During WarTime trade goods yield nothing.

The buffs

A buff applies to the town that uses the goodie. Buffs marked stackable add up when you have more of them; the others count once.

Tips

• Whale is the most valuable good: 500 coins and four buffs. It only lies in the south, on water.
• You need Horses to buy horses at the Stable.
• Copper, Oil and Silver give a Blacksmith 100 extra hammers.
• A Spy can steal a goodie from an enemy outpost using the Pirate mission.